


Of all the things not yet discarded (you are my favourite one)

by Teatrolley



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, and not a damsel in distress thank you very much, bond is so very in love, but wouldn't he be, q is just huggable, with a bit of Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-10 01:55:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5564524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teatrolley/pseuds/Teatrolley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You shouldn’t distract me,” Q says. His words are dragged out; languorous. There’s no hurry; there’s just breathing and soft touches. His fingers move from Bond’s earlobes into the edge of his hair.<br/>
“Hm,” Bond says. “Shouldn’t I?”<br/>
“You shouldn’t,” Q says. Bond moves his hands to Q’s neck, where he presses his fingertips lightly into soft skin, and turns his head to kiss Q again.<br/>
</p><p>_________________</p><p>After they get together, Q stops discarding Bond's broken gadgets and uses them to build new things instead. Bond wonders why. Also, they're in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of all the things not yet discarded (you are my favourite one)

**Author's Note:**

> This idea quite literally came to me in a dream. Good on you just-awoken-4am-me for writing it down.

**1.**

When Bond wakes, it’s to the sound of someone rummaging through his storage closet. An object, probably metal, makes a clank when it hits the floor, loud in the otherwise quiet of the night. The intruder shushes it. 

Bond doesn’t have to sit up to know who it is; he didn’t even need the voice really; there’s only one option for who could possibly be in his flat at – he looks at his bedside table watch – 3am, ploughing through his things. 

“What are you doing here?” Bond asks. There are no sounds of things hitting the floor, or other indicators of surprise. 

“I don’t own a screwdriver,” Q says. He sounds rather grumpy when he continues, despite the fact of _his_ breaking in: “Because, as you may remember, _someone_ broke it. How that is even possible, I don’t know.”

“What do you need a screwdriver for?” Bond feels this is a rather fair question to be asking, but he receives just a huff. 

“Never you mind.”

Bond supposes he might as well let go of that line of questioning then; If Q doesn’t want to tell, there’s no possible way he could coax it out of him. Well. There’s no possible way he could coax it out of him without promising either very many orgasms or a lot of cat-sitting. 

“It’s the middle of the night,” he says instead.

“Go back to sleep then.”

He doesn’t. Instead he sits up in the bed, so he can actually see the other man. He has taken over the space in front of the closet, now open, and have already littered it with so much and so varied a selection of equipment that Bond only knows what half of it is meant to do. Then there’s the screwdriver; black, sleek and never before used. 

There’s also the exploding watch that Bond, well, exploded during his last mission, when he decided that it was really rather time to be getting out of the cell he was kept and mildly tortured in. 

“Did you steal that?” he asks. Q glances at him, briefly, before he says,

“I made it. So I can’t steal it.”

“Yeah, you can.”

Q looks at him again, but this time his eyes are narrowed in annoyance. Bond knows that Q can be deadly when he wants to, but this look has never worked on him; Q’s face is simply too squishy for it to have any effect at all. Bond also knows that he should never tell Q this, if he wants to avoid ‘mysteriously failing’ all of his evals and being sent on leave for an indefinite time. 

“Are you going to continue to be grumpy?” Q asks him. 

“Are _you_ going to continue to be grumpy?” Bond retorts. He’s teasing – and also treacherously fond – so he can’t help his smile. Q’s expressions softens and becomes a grin, too. Then it becomes a chuckle.

“Hi,” he says. 

“Hey.” 

Bond lies back down on the bed, on his stomach, but this time his face is in the wrong part of it. He puts his head in his palm, holding it on his elbow, and raises his brows at Q until he crawls over and presses a kiss to Bond’s lips. His hands come up to cup Bond’s jaw, and his thumb and index fingers on both hands hold onto Bond’s earlobes; This is Q’s thing. 

Bond puts his hands to Q’s chest, cupping his collarbones and caressing them with his thumb. His movements are light; They’ve always been with Q. It’s not that Q can’t take care of himself, but he’s so delicate that Bond has always been delicate with him. 

Q hums in content, and moves in closer on his knees. His touch gets just a little firmer. It makes Bond smile.

Pulling back a little, Q pushes his nose into Bond’s cheek; Bond hears him breathing in deeply. Perhaps he is being marked. He can still reach the corner of Q’s mouth, so he kisses it there, again.

“You shouldn’t distract me,” Q says. His words are dragged out; languorous. There’s no hurry; there’s just breathing and soft touches. His fingers move from Bond’s earlobes into the edge of his hair.

“Hm,” Bond says. “Shouldn’t I?” It’s a genuine question; should he let Q get back to work, or would it be a rather good idea if he continued to entice Q into giving it up for tonight?

“You shouldn’t,” Q says. Bond moves his hands to Q’s neck, where he presses his fingertips lightly into soft skin, and turns his head to kiss Q again.

“Okay,” he says then. Scuttling back on the bed a bit, he removes his fingers and pulls them back over to himself. Q’s come down to touch them shortly, offering the last bit of comfort, before he pulls away too.

“Are you going to tell me what it is you’re creating?” Bond asks. 

Q scurries back to the pile of stuff on the floor, and picks up the screwdriver and the watch.

“No,” he says. Bond isn’t really offended or surprised. 

“Will it explode?”

Q smiles. “What did I just tell you?”

Bond shrugs. Worth a try, wasn’t it? He folds his arms on the bed, and rests his chin on them, so he can watch Q working comfortably. 

Watching Q in the midst of this sort of concentration is truly fascinating. He becomes focused and gone to the world, in a way Bond could never hope to match. The place between his eyebrows get a little tense, especially when the work is difficult, but it is worth it for the softness of his face when he is done and his imagined creation has become a reality. 

Bond especially loves those moments. After a good bout of work, and especially after a completion of something, Q becomes all pliant and, Bond thinks, pastel; normally he is all loud and bold colours, painted with broad strokes and always moving with the speed of light, but during those times he slows down and becomes all meticulous details; 

He becomes the lines by his mouth and eyes that are there from all of his smiling; he becomes the mole on the right side of his chest, just above his lowest rib. He becomes the faint hairs at the nape of his neck, that Bond will press his lips to, when he’s curled around his back and moving into him languidly. He becomes his satisfied, untroubled hums that are just a few octaves lower than his normal voice.

It doesn’t look like he’ll become any of those things tonight, but it’s all right. Without saying anything, Bond gets up from the bed and goes to put the kettle on. If there was ever a thing he could use for manipulative purposes more than his sexual prowess, it’s his ability to make a cuppa exactly the way Q likes it. 

When Bond puts the cup on the floor next to Q, Q puts his fingers around Bond’s ankle and leans into his leg. Bond runs a hand through his hair. 

“I’m going to go back to sleep,” Bond tells him. Q squeezes his ankle.

“All right.”

“See if you can get an hour too, yeah?” Q really is notoriously bad at getting enough rest, but he’ll occasionally allow Bond to pull him into a bed and lie on top of him, holding him down, until he’s got at least five hours in. 

“Okay, mother.”

Bond ruffles Q’s hair in revenge. “Night, now,” he says, but stays a little longer before he actually goes. 

He’s gotten back under the covers and turned out his light before he hears Q getting up from the floor. Four seconds later lips are pressed softly to his own.

“Night, love,” Q whispers. He only uses endearments when he is particularly fond. Bond smiles, and kisses him back.

**2.**

Q branch is hardly ever empty, but on a Wednesday afternoon Bond enters it, and all he finds are two of Q’s minions sitting at their respective desks and, for some reason, Moneypenny and Tanner. No Q in sight. 

Bond walks up to the two of them instead. Neither of them pay him much attention. There’s a pile of cards on the desk between them, as well as Moneypenny’s feet. 

“Bond,” Tanner greets him. Then: “Kings?”

Moneypenny barely looks at her cards. “Go fish,” she says. Bond tries not to grimace. 

“You would think the two of you were cleverer than a children’s game,” he says. He’s mostly ignored.

“7?” Moneypenny says. To Bond, she retorts, “You would think Q would’ve managed to teach you about fun by now.”

“Fun?” Bond asks. He doesn’t say ‘Q doesn’t teach me things’ because it would be a lie. Tanner hands Moneypenny two cards, and she puts the set of them down on the table in front of her. Smiling overbearingly up at Bond, she says, “Fun.”

“Speaking of fun,” Tanner says, looking at his wristwatch. Bond briefly wonders if it explodes; Q likes him. “Q is in the lab. He’s on his 56th hour.” He means without sleep; it’s sort of routine for them all to watch out for him. “Go work your magic, maybe?”

“He’s not a child,” Bond says. Moneypenny snorts; Bond knows she agrees, so it must be because of the defending. 

“Indeed,” Tanner says. “He is a highly dangerous man. All the more reason to worry.”

Bond sighs, but does as he’s told. He does steal Moneypenny’s beer to take with him though; just because he can and she’ll let him. 

 

The lab is sparsely illuminated when he enters it, which means that Q has been so busy he hasn’t even been over by the light-switch for the overhead lights. Bond leaves them off.

Q is bent over a table in the middle of the room, various trinkets and gadgets spread out over it. When Bond reaches it, he sees his own radio – the one that was broken during his last mission while he was chasing the target – in Q’s hands. He’s pulling the chip out of it with a pincer. Next to him are his own keys. 

Bond thinks he can figure out what this project is for. Since he began dating Q, he’s spent a lot of time driving around the city and letting him in places, because he couldn’t find said keys. 

“Is this your way of reminding me to take more care of my stuff, lest they be scavenged for parts to use in your home-projects?” 

He walks around the table, wanting to be able to look at Q from an angle good enough to assess how close to dropping off to sleep right there and then he might be.

“Yes,” Q tells him. He bends down to cut a part of the chip off, squinting his eyes to better see. When he’s done, he looks up. Bond takes him in: The crescent moons underneath his eyes are certainly dark, and his left eyelid is a tiny bit twitchy from all of the caffeine, but he looks relatively okay. 

“Are you on babysitting duty?” Q asks. Of course he’s bloody well able to figure them out. Bond shrugs.

“I’ve been told to ‘work my magic’,” he says. “Invite me over to your place tonight?”

“No,” Q says. “Can’t. I need to finish this.” 

Bond walks back to stand next to him. Q cuts another piece off the chip.

“No, you don’t,” Bond says. Q reaches up to pat his back, and doesn’t reply. Bond positions himself so he’s standing behind Q, his arms resting on the table on either side of Q’s hips. Q doesn’t stop working, but Bond can see him smiling.

“Is it more important than orgasms?” he asks. Really, the goal here is for Q to get some rest, but a little bit of sex thrown in has never hurt anyone. 

“Not to you.” 

It’s not a complete rejection of the idea. As Q says it, his tone is amused; the smile is still planted on his lips as well. Bond takes this to mean that he’s allowed to curl himself around Q’s back, and does. He removes his hands from the table and puts them on Q’s stomach instead, so Bond’s body engulfs him. 

“Q,” he says. He makes his voice as low and sultry as he can master; it doesn’t matter if it’s seduction or begging. He puts his cheek next to Q’s, and feels it moving around Q’s smirk. 

“Mm?” 

Bond runs his hands up Q’s chest, reaching his shoulders, and down again. He gnaws at Q’s earlobe until Q turns his head and allows Bond to kiss him. Q’s hands come up to rest on the back of Bond’s head, holding him in the kiss. 

“Give me one now, why don’t you?” he says. He’s surrendered to it; his muscles have become soft, and he’s mostly held up by Bond’s body behind him. When Bond tweaks his nipple gently and presses his mouth to his neck, Q sighs deeply and smiles again. 

“An orgasm?” Bond asks. Q’s hand comes up to grasp Bond’s, and Bond smirks into his neck as his hands are slowly guided downwards. 

“Mm,” Q hums. “Yes. Please.”

Q’s hands let go of Bond’s, so Bond is free to open the button on Q’s trousers. As he does, Q leans his upper body into Bond’s chest further, as he becomes pliant and jelly-like in Bond’s arms with compliance. Bond takes Q’s earlobe in his mouth again, this time grazing his teeth against it. 

“Only if you let me take you home after,” he says. Q huffs out a breath, and if he weren’t so soft right now, it would probably have been a chuckle. 

“All right then,” he says. 

Bond does as requested, then. At first Q is soft in his arms, but then the arousal builds, and he begins throwing his head back slightly and leaning it on Bond’s left shoulder, alternating between gasping and biting his lip as he smiles. His hands come up to Bond’s neck, and he pushes his nails into the nape of it, but otherwise lets Bond have all of the control. 

As Q starts moaning softly, and his body tenses up, Bond kisses his jaw. As he does, Q smiles and it turns into a breathy chuckle. Bond presses his responding grin into the space where Q’s jaw becomes his neck. 

“Bloody hell, you,” Q murmurs. 

Bond kisses him. He’s still kissing him when Q’s nails push into his skin extra hard, and he comes, whimpering a little into Bond’s mouth. He keeps kissing him until Q turns around in his grip and holds onto his earlobes. Then he kisses him some more. 

It’s Q who breaks it, but he does so only so he can press their bodies together fully, his arms around Bond’s neck. His nose nudges Bond’s cheekbone and he presses soft kisses to the hollow place just behind Bond’s ear. Bond’s hands press against the low of Q’s back, so gently it almost isn’t there.

“I love you,” Q says. Bond smiles, and presses it to the edge of Q’s hair. 

“You mean you love the fantastic orgasms I give you.”

Q laughs. “Hm. Yes,” he says. He pulls back a little, and then he’s looking at Bond. His eyes have that extra fond look in them that they get when he says it and really, really means it. He kisses Bond’s upper lip just barely.

“Mostly you, though,” he says. Bond grins. 

**3.**

Being loved by someone, even when that someone is your quartermaster, does not always keep you safe. 

Or, in other words: Bond is hurt. 

It’s not that serious, not really. It certainly isn’t the worst he’s ever had; it’s just a broken rib, a twisted ankle, and two bullet wounds. 

The problem is the minute during the mission, where Bond has a gun to his head and all hope seems to be lost, and Bond finds himself saying, despite the fact that the man holding the gun will hear, “Q, I–“

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Q interrupts him. “You never say it. You don’t get to say it like this.”

The gun is pressed harder into Bond’s forehead, but the trigger isn’t pulled, because the boss hasn’t said so yet. Bond’s own gun is too broken to be of any use right now. He’s out of options. A shame that it should be like this, with someone who are amateurs enough to not have taken his earpiece from him.

“Run,” Q says. “You can get out. You can’t get far, but you don’t need to.” 

The desperation of determination in his voice is the most painful thing Bond has ever listened to. He knows that he has to at least try; his life means more now, than when it was just his own.

“Trust me,” Q says. Bond does. 

He runs. Using the element of surprise he grabs the gun and turns it away from himself. The trigger is pulled; he doesn’t see who is hit, because he’s running. Shots are fired and he’s hit twice; in his upper back and in the back of his thigh. He keeps running, and then he jumps, although he’s three stories up. 

Q blows up a building for him. 

__

When Bond wakes up in medical, Q is sitting in a chair next to his bed with folded arms and a face full of tight, angry lines. It wouldn’t be surprising to Bond if he’s been sitting that very same way ever since Bond came back; perhaps even in the probable helicopter ambulance that would’ve taken him here. 

“Remind me to never piss you off,” Bond says. 

Q’s eyes focus on him, but his expression doesn’t change. Bond smiles softly at him, resolutely waiting until some of the hardness starts crumbing off Q’s face. He keeps smiling until Q draws in a big breath, and the lines fall entirely off his face as he breathes out. Then he holds out his hand in request. 

“Can I talk you into my bed?” he asks. 

Q joins him in it. He crawls in under the covers, and lies on his side, resting his head on Bond’s chest. Bond puts his arm around him and breathes him in; he tries not to think about how he could have lost this or, worse, how he could have taken it from Q. 

“You should be dead right now,” Q whispers; his voice is void of any emotions. Bond knows that neutrality is carefully constructed. He wishes it didn’t have to be.

“I know,” he says. “Thanks for saving me.”

Q raises his head to look at Bond; Bond smiles at him again, and puts his fingers to Q’s chin, pulling him in a little so their lips can press together. Q barely kisses him back, but he breathes so shakily Bond thinks that might be a good thing.

He pulls back so he can look at Q again. He doesn’t just look exhausted; when the tension left him, it seemed like all of the energy left him, too. He’s not pastel now; he’s bleak. 

“My deadly boy,” Bond says. It makes Q smile, just a tiny bit; then it makes his face crumble all over again. He whimpers, once, and then he’s crying. It’s silent. Bond kisses him again, and doesn’t care that it’s wet. 

He takes Q’s hand, and positions it on his own wrist so Q’s thumb is resting over his pulse-point. When Q looks back from watching it, Bond kisses the tears off his cheeks. 

“You have to stop crying and calm down to be able to feel my pulse,” he says. 

Q snorts, and it’s almost like laughter. Then it is like laughter; it’s probably more relief than Bond being funny, but Bond chuckles with him anyway. Only then, when Q breathes in once more, does it look like the heavy weight weighing him down has been lifted a bit.

“I hate you,” he says. He presses his thumb into Bond’s wrist, so hard it hurts; Bond doesn’t mind. He runs his hand through Q’s hair instead. 

“I know,” he says. Q lies back down on his chest, so he puts his hand on Q’s shoulderblade. “I’m sorry.”

“Just don’t do it again,” Q says. 

“No,” Bond agrees. He intends to do his very best to keep it. 

Q snuggles in further to Bond’s body, and puts his hand up to rest against Bond’s neck, over the pulse-point there. He presses his fingers against it, just as Bond watches him close his eyes. He’s tired, probably; more even than Bond is. And Bond is wrecked. 

“Stay,” he says. “Sleep here.”

“Well, I’m certainly not going to leave you now, am I?” Q replies. Bond snorts and kisses his forehead. 

“You know that thing you interrupted me saying?” he asks. 

“Yes,” Q says. His eyes remain closed. “Don’t say it yet. I’m not over the pain enough.”

Bond chuckles. “Okay,” he agrees. “But do you know it?”

Q does open his eyes then, and lifts his head up enough to kiss Bond softly again. Bond smiles into it. 

“Yes,” Q says then. “I know it.”

__

When they’re both awake next, Q asks Bond if he brought back the gun. Bond is mildly confused, since the gun is certainly not functioning, which Q knows very dearly, but he makes sure it gets to him anyway. 

Later, when he is allowed to walk around MI6 again, and the worry has lessened enough that Q isn’t by his side all the time (although, apparently, he never goes home; he’s always either working or in Bond’s room), Bond finds Q in his lab, with the gun next to him. 

Just like with all of the other things Bond has broken on his missions, and Q has then taken for his own, this one is used to scavenge parts from. 

“What is this?” Bond asks. Unlike usual, Q turns to him immediately, abandoning the work; probably he wants to make sure Bond isn’t straining himself or his wounds. Bond waves his crutch at him. When he makes it to the table, he puts them against it, and stands without them.

“What?” Q asks then. 

“You always scavenging my broken gadgets for parts instead of discarding them.” 

Q contemplates him for a moment. Then he purses his lips, and returns his attention to the gun on the table. He’s taking apart the tech that recognises Bond’s handprint. 

“No need to waste it,” he says. “It’s a lot of money down the drain, you know.”

Bond hums. It’s not that Q is lying, but it definitely isn’t the whole truth. Which means the whole truth is something emotional. He puts his hand gently to the low of Q’s back.

“Yeah,” he says. “But that’s not it. Not entirely.”

Q sighs, but then he straightens, and returns his attention to Bond. When Bond examines his expression, it looks like he’s decided telling the truth is the easiest route. Bond tries to send him a smile. He gets one back, but it’s more melancholy than happy. Q cups his cheek, briefly, before he removes his hand and breathes in.

“You only bring back your stuff broken when you’re seriously hurt too, now,” he says. Bond considers this; it’s true.

“Yes?”

Q looks at the floor for a moment, breaking eye-contact. When he returns it, he’s biting his lip. 

“I have to do something with that,” he says. “With the potential outcome that is implied. So I do something with the things you bring back. I make them useful, and give them a purpose.” 

Bond’s smile falls off his face; this is serious stuff. How long has this been going on without him noticing? Q sees it, and exhales shakily. 

“It helps me remind myself of the purpose behind what you – we – do, despite what they nearly didn’t save you from.”

“Q,” Bond says. He brings his hand up, wanting to touch Q’s cheek with it, but Q recoils.

“Don’t,” he says; it’s a quiet exclamation. Bond’s hand hangs in the air. Q grimaces at it, but then he takes it between his own. 

“Sorry,” he says. He’s biting his lip again, but he meets Bond’s eye; they’re bad at this talking part; they both know it. Bond squeezes his hand, and tries to make that mean something.

“It’s not a sad thing,” Q says. “Don’t feel sorry for me. The risk is the condition; I’m just coping with that.”

Bond studies him; it looks like he means it. He doesn’t ask if what he gives Q is enough to outweigh the condition. Right now he’s too scared Q might say no. Instead he takes a tentative step forward, with it asking for permission to touch in some way. 

“Okay,” he says. “I understand.”

Q studies him back. Then he nods; satisfied. It means that Bond is allowed to hold him, too. 

He does. It makes it just a little bit easier to breathe.

**4.**

The day Bond gets out of medical, Q isn’t in his office, so Bond writes him a note on his notepad, simply saying “Dinner?”

When he gets out from his debriefing with M and Moneypenny and walks through MI6, one of the computer screens light up with a single message; white letters on black background: “Cook for me.”

Bond turns to the nearest camera and gives it his best smile. “Your place,” he mouths at it. When he makes it back to his room to gather his things, a Q-branch minion appears with Q’s keys in his outstretched hand and a stammer on his lips. 

When Bond asks him what’s wrong, he says, “Q said to give you a kiss from him.” Bond laughs.

“Just tell him you did,” he says. “Make it believable. I’m economical with the tongue.”

“Sir,” the minion says, blushing just a little. Bond is still smiling when he leaves. 

 

He cooks them a stew, and buys a good bottle of red wine. 

“So, Jonathan says you’re a great kisser,” Q says, upon entrance. He jumps to the counter next to the stove where Bond is cooking. 

“Jonathan? Oh, the minion?” 

Q rolls his eyes, but affirms. He snatches a piece of chicken from the pan, and drinks some of Bond’s wine. Bond stands in front of him, his hands on Q’s knees, and leans in to press a kiss to his lips. He runs his hands up Q’s thighs, just to hear him hum with pleasure. 

“Someone is hoping to get laid tonight,” Q says. 

“I think I can do better than tonight,” Bond says. Q laughs, and pushes his foot into Bond’s side until it tickles and Bond has to grab it. 

“Woo me,” Q says, so Bond kisses him some more. Q presses his heels into the small of Bond’s back and touches his earlobes, like usual. Bond holds his lower arms and then, when it gets a bit heated, his jaw. 

“Hm,” Q sighs; pleased. “Why don’t we eat in bed so we can shag quicker?”

Bond laughs, and they do. Their sex is not as rough as it could be, because Bond still needs to be careful, but it isn’t the slow love-making of heavy emotions either. It’s Q sitting in Bond’s lap, taking care of his own and Bond’s pleasure, and it’s Q laughing into Bond’s mouth when Bond kisses him with fever and a slight bit of desperation. 

Afterwards they take a shower, and then a bath. Bond goes to fetch the wine, and they pass the bottle between them. They sit at either end of the tub, so Q pushes his foot into Bond’s side and smiles at him through lips red from the humidity. His wet curls fall over his forehead.

“Is it worth it?” Bond asks. He pulls Q’s foot onto his chest, so he can massage it. He’s asking the question he was too scared to ask the other day. Q’s affectionate smiles tonight have reassured him that the answer will probably be yes. 

Q frowns a little, so he must know what Bond means.

“Of course,” he says. “More than.”

“Really?” Bond, despite it all, doubts that. He isn’t that much of a catch, really. But Q remains earnest when he says,

“Yes.”

For a while they don’t say anything; Bond just massages Q’s soles. Q’s frown disappears; instead he smiles and looks tender. Bond wants to kiss him.

“I want to kiss you,” he says. Q’s smile turns into a chuckle, and he pushes his foot against Bond’s jaw to be provoking. Bond continues to want to kiss him.

“Come over here and kiss me then you lazy arse.” 

Bond takes hold of Q’s ankle, and pulls a little, so Q is pulled towards him. “I’m wounded,” he says. Q rolls his eyes, but he does crawl down to Bond’s side and holds himself above Bond’s face, their bodies aligned under the water. 

“So are you going to do anything about it?” he asks. 

Bond responds by reaching down between them and pinching Q’s nipple just hard enough to be a little painful, so he emits a rather ungraceful squeal. When Bond chuckles, Q sploshes water in his face. Bond just chuckles more, and then he does kiss him.

Q’s hands come up to rest on Bond’s shoulders, using them to support his own body. Bond cups the sides of Q’s face so he can hold him close and make the kiss firm enough for it to make Q press himself into Bond’s body a little harder. 

When they pull apart, Q settles next to Bond, and touches the space between his collarbones under the water.

“You’re my favourite, you know,” he says. Bond turns his head to watch him.

“Your favourite?”

“Hm,” Q agrees. He presses a kiss to Bond’s jaw. “Of the things that I haven’t discarded yet.”

Bond laughs, and it echoes in the tiled room. Q giggles too, and presses his nose into Bond’s cheek. Bond is so goddamn in love with him.

“I love you,” he says. He should say it more; Q’s face lights up so beautifully whenever he does. His grin is so wide his cheeks become two plums and all of his teeth in his upper mouth are on display. He giggles again, once, and it sounds like pure glee bubbling up from the chest of him. 

“I know,” he says. His smile doesn’t lessen one bit. Bond chuckles too, and kisses one of those round cheeks. 

“Sorry for not saying it enough.”

Q shakes his head. “You say it all the time,” he says. Bond supposes that he does, to Q, who is able enough to see behind his unspoken words and the subtext of his gestures and understand. 

“Oh,” he says. “Well. Then you won’t mind me saying it again?”

Q bites his lip and shakes his head. “Nope.” Bond kisses him, just because he can.

“I love you,” he says. 

 

And I always will.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading! Hopefully you're all happy inside now. Do tell me what you thought in the comments?


End file.
